


the past is just a prologue

by hizashii



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Background Relationships, Backstory, Best Friends, F/M, Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-14
Updated: 2016-04-14
Packaged: 2018-06-02 04:41:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6551443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hizashii/pseuds/hizashii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For some weird inexplicable reason, she smiled.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the past is just a prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shortitude](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shortitude/gifts).



> Yes. This is a romantic daisy/mack fic. You read that right. But it's also a look at Daisy's past, and how in the end it never held her back.
> 
> For Cella. Because she wrote the fic I religiously devour each week when I need my daisymack fix.

 

When Daisy Johnson was Mary Sue Poots, she dreamed of saving herself. No boy could save her, nor did she want them to; she wanted to be the hero of the story, the one pulling dogs from buildings on fire, the one saving the damsel from the tower, the powerful, the great, the _incredible_ Skye.

The nuns, they didn’t agree. Girls were made to be calm, Mary Sue, and devoted to God, and timid, and _silent_ , and they should never wish for greatness, they should only pray for peace, they would say. They would give her gray clothes; strip her off her colors and her dreams.

But Skye dreamt of a better future, one she would help build, one where the glory would touch her and her clothing was colorful and her meals were always warm.

.

.

.

When Daisy Johnson was Skye, she fell for the wrong guy. A lot. All the time, more like.

She fell and fell, but she never once hit the ground. They never brought her down, she was weightless, her feet light, her hopes unbroken. They could make her feel sick in the stomach, they could make her fear for her life, they could try and corrupt her, but they would never take away her pride, and they would never reach her strength with their ugly hands.

She wouldn’t touch the ground. _Never_ for the wrong guy.

Because Skye was every ounce the superhero Mary Sue Poots dreamed of being, she just didn’t know it yet.

.

.

.

When Daisy Johnson was Skye, her world got turned upside down more times than she could have imagined.

She got fooled a lot, her once savvy soul blinded by her need to see the best in people, _oh naïve little girl_. Twenty five years old and yet so young, so old too, the jagged edges of centuries of loneliness cutting her deep.

The only home she had ever know burned down to ashes, their pride taken away, the betrayal tying a knot in her throat, feet tangled together when she crumbled in the bathroom floor, blood staining her eyes, cold fear sipping her bones.

Skye, Skye… _if only you could understand…_

Understand what? That she’s not meant to find a home? That her life is just a series of hopeless scenarios where she will never truly belong? That she’s all alone.

All alone, crying in the bathroom, her nails making creases in her thighs.

_Oh, Skye, did you really think you were home?_

.

.

.

When Daisy Johnson was Skye, she met a man. Or, more accurately, a man met her.

This man helped save her life. This man was her friend, he confidant, her right hand in every sense of the word.

But that man quite literally crumbled in front of her eyes by the force of her own chaotic disgrace. The trembling bones, crushing her every hope; all alone, Skye, did you _really_ think you had come home?

_Do you believe in life after death? And, more importantly, do you want to believe?_

.

.

.

When Daisy Johnson was Skye, she found her parents, she found Afterlife and she found love again.

 _Easy_ , calming love. The cuddling in the middle of the day kind of love. Let’s settle down together, have 2 kids, white picket fence kind of love.

You know, the kind of love she _never_ asked for. The one she should be grabbing at with tooth and nail, never letting go. The one she slowly lets drift away, inevitably falling behind in her frantic, adrenaline-filled adventurous life.

Lincoln loves her, that much is true, and she loves him. But what is love in the face of boredom? What is love in the face of differences that are too hard to reconcile?

What is love, when there is no real trust?

What is love, when you agree on everything except the things that really matter in the end?

.

.

.

When Skye stopped being Skye, she lost herself.

The name, the name she had picked with such care, with such loving devotion (the kind the nuns said should be saved for God), had too much destruction attached to it. There was too much past, too many broken promises shattering the edges of a name she used to wear proudly for everyone to see.

Skye, the name, became tainted by the memory of being fooled by Hydra, of rejecting her true self and of bruises in her arms because she felt she was a monster. Skye was naïve, and she was trusting, and she was the one who felt the life being drained out of her body by her own mother.

She was the one who got shot and nearly died, and the one who caused Trip’s death, and the one that needed saving.

And she was _tired_ of it.

.

.

.

When Daisy Johnson was born, yet again, she found herself. She found herself in the memory of that last hug with her dad, in the way her fingers traced the keys of a laptop when the world was falling down, she found herself in the trips to medical that showed her that true love never really died and in visits to the lab that taught her that hope should never be lost.

And she found a partner. Or, rather, a partner found her.

.

.

.

She can’t pinpoint the moment Mack stopped hating her. Maybe he never did, maybe he just was scared of what she was capable of doing. Fear is funny like that (not funny at all). Makes people say things they don’t mean or, maybe, things they mean but they do not _want_ to mean.

Mack, she has learned, is not a person who’s used to fear. For him, fear is this strange alien concept; which, honestly, it’s kind of funny, if one considers his biggest fear seemed to be the unknown powers these aliens could have.

The unknown is something Daisy used to fear, back when she was a little girl; she feared the unknown until she went into the world headfirst and just dealt with it.

That’s what she tells Mack that one night, in between the sound of the coffee machine working its magic. She told him to face his fear, because they had lost so many people to try and avoid their fears, they had lost so much and they didn’t have much left, so he had to be in it completely.

And then, when he looked at her, all his fears etched into his face, his eyes heavy with things unsaid, she just couldn’t bear it. She walked away, like a coward, a beautiful irony considering what she had just told him, and he just watched her leave, not saying anything.

The very next day, Coulson told her she had the first member of her team. Incredible as it was, she knew before opening the folder that Mack’s face was going to be the one staring right back at her.

For some weird inexplicable reason, she smiled.

.

.

.

They had a rhythm now, her and Mack. They quickly fell into a pattern that worked perfectly, to everybody’s surprise; they clicked, against all odds. It was strange, and a little scary, to have someone next to her that she trusted so completely.

Daisy Johnson was not naïve, and she was not trusting, but even before two months had passed she knew she could easily rest her life in Mack’s back and he would carry it with him without any kind of hesitation.

It was the same for her, too. She would make a lot of hard calls, but she couldn’t imagine herself ever letting Mack get caught in the crossfire. She couldn’t imagine walking away and leaving him in harm’s way, or having to stand still as someone left him behind in the name of the greater good.

Their partnership was too important to let it go. For the first time in her entire life, Daisy felt like she had an equal; she had never felt as if she was in the same level as anyone, until she started working with Mack. He talked her up, and he talked her down, he contained her when it needed to be done, but he never thought about cutting her wings off.

She never once dreamed there would be someone that would _get_ her like this, which is a strange thing to think about when she considers their incredibly rocky start, or the many differences that still simmered between them.

On paper, their partnership should be chaos. But she had learned that things are never as they seem.

.

.

.

Daisy Johnson could be reckless, impatient and stubborn, but she knew what she has in front of her, and she wasn’t going to let go of it easily. She knew that she had found what she didn’t know she was looking for, and she knew how rare that was in their line of work; she had seen relationships fall apart (and fall right back on track, too, but that’s another point entirely),  and tears shed, blood spilling, the heartbreak, the death, _the betrayal_. Loving a spy is tiring, and being loved by a spy is exhausting too.

But she wasn’t going to be a coward anymore. It had been two years since she told Mack to face his fears, and she had been running from the truth for at least a year, afraid of losing him. And she was tired of it; she was tired of pretending she didn’t linger in his space when he hugged her or that she ached to reach for his hand when she was feeling weighted down.

She was tired of pretending she wanted to watch another movie just so they could fall asleep in the sofa together, bodies slowly twisting into each other’s warmth. She knew the game was up, and they were in worse denial that Fitz and Simmons once were, and she didn’t want to be the silly person who is too scared to make a move.

That’s the reason she sat closer to him that night when they played videogames, as they did each Thursday night. They had become ridiculously religious to their little routine; come hell rain, come sunshine, they just sat there and played when the clock hit eleven pm. No one ever disturbed their peace.

But that night, she got closer and closer, feeling his warmth through her shirt; she could feel his muscles move with each movement, and her proximity made it hard to ignore his deep breathing. She could hear every muffled curse, every stutter of his breath and she could sense the air thicken the older the night got, their eyes dropping from exhaustion.

She kissed him in the middle of the game, even though she was winning. She kissed him because she was tired of feeling like a coward; she kissed him because she had wanted to do it for a long time. She kissed him, opening his mouth against hers, because she couldn’t possibly imagine herself kissing anyone else. Ever.

He slid a hand to her waist, his fingers gripping softly at her shirt, and she trembled, which made him laugh, obviously, and he muttered, _easy, tremors,_ in between her teeth. Not the first time she had ever heard these words coming from him, but easily her favorite. She kissed him, tasting the sound of his breathy chuckle, swallowing up the words.

She wanted to laugh, too, because she was just so happy she could barely contain herself. She broke the kiss and let her head drop on his shoulder, eyes closing slowly, his hand against her stomach, his chest moving slowly, both with stupid matching grins in their faces.

For the first time in her life, she knew she was home.

 


End file.
